Miami Herald Sports Writer Disses LSU

According to the Birmingham News sports section, Miami Herald Sportswriter GREG COTE wrote the following, "BCS football champion Louisiana State showed a graduation rate of 29% this season despite a demanding entrance exam in which players were required to spell L-S-U."

Who is this guy and what institution of higher learning, if any, did he graduate from and what was his GPA. Are sportswriters scholarly resumes so full of academic prestige as to give them the background from which they can cast dispersions against other universities? Maybe tiger fans should enlighten this GOOBERHEAD!!! [email protected]

I know of no such entrance exam to get into LSU. I just filed an application and was accepted.

Of course, hate to brag, but my qualifications were far above the minimum standards. I understand it's not always this way with athletes.

And stats can be deceiving. The grad stats shown for last year were for the incoming recruiting class of 1997. The "height" of the Gerry DiNardo era. Need I remind you what kind of student-athletes (and I'll use that term loosely) we were recruiting back then?

Two years ago, both our football and overall athletic graduation rates were above 60% and second only to Vanderbilt in the conference. But those were mostly Curley Hallman recruited players. Say what you want about Curley, but he recruited good kids and made sure they graduated.

Give the grad rate three years, and I promise you it will go way, way up. Coach Saban is VERY serious about the players taking care of business in the classroom, and with two Academic All-Americans last year, it's showing.